In general, the analysis of fluid samples is widely used not only in the fields of chemistry and biotechnology but also in the field of diagnosis through analysis of blood and body fluids collected from patients.
In recent years, a variety of miniaturized analytical and diagnostic instruments and techniques have been developed to perform such fluid sample analysis more easily and efficiently.
On the other hand, one of the important methods for analyzing such fluid samples is to pretreat fluid samples.
Here, the pretreatment of the fluid sample means that a desired amount of sample extracted before analysis of the fluid sample, for example, is accurately treated at a proper ratio in a dilution buffer and the like, is mixed with a solid or liquid reaction reagent, or is separated and refined by using a filling or a supporter.
Typically, a fluid sample is pretreated using a pipette or dropper for this purpose, but regarding analysis of sample in a unit of lab-on-a-chip or lab-on-a-tip, it is not easy for an operator to precisely treat a desired minimum amount of sample using a pipette or dropper since the amount of sample used in the pretreatment is very small and the sample must be treated very accurately.
In addition, in the field inspection method, the collected sample is pretreated and then put into the measuring instrument again. In the input step, there is a problem of error in the amount of the sample applied once again.
Therefore, there is a need for a sample pretreatment module capable of minimizing operator's error in pretreatment of a very small amount of blood or other samples, facilitating the pretreatment process easily and easily, and capable of discharging a fixed quantity of pretreated samples.